30 Seconds to Mars (or Thirty Seconds to Mars) is an alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California, featuring actor Jared Leto as the lead vocalist. Created in 1998 by Jared Leto and his brother, Shannon, 30 Seconds to Mars began as a small family project. Things began to speed up quickly, and Matt Wachter later joined the band as bassist and keyboard player. After working with small revolving door of guitarists (as the band's first two guitarists, Kevin Drake and Solon Bixler, left the band due to issues primarily related to touring), the three auditioned Tomo Miličević to round out the band's roster. According to an interview from Virgin Records, the band's name "actually comes from a thesis that the band found online that was written by a former Harvard professor. And one of the subsections of the thesis was titled 'thirty seconds to mars' and he goes on to talk about the expediential growth of technology that relates to humans and saying that we are quite literally thirty seconds to mars. What it means to us is, we thought it best described our music, in short." 30 Seconds to Mars' first, self-titled album, produced by Bob Ezrin, was released in 2002 to mixed reviews and achieved sales of just over 100,000. Their sophomore album, A Beautiful Lie, was released on August 30, 2005. For this effort, the band traveled (during the course of three years) to four continents, to perfect their sound and also to allow for Jared's film career. The album was produced by Josh Abraham, whose producing credits also include Orgy, Velvet Revolver, and Linkin Park.
Band members